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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366446">repent</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkcana/pseuds/arkcana'>arkcana</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Not Beta Read, Retelling, mentions of beau and fjord, wrote this as a little practice thing for funsies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:55:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>676</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366446</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkcana/pseuds/arkcana</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>she’s been made for this, bred for this, trained for this— to be savage, brutal, destructive. but buried deep down is something other.</p><p>— a brief retelling of yasha's redemption, episode 86 (the cathedral)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>repent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Heavy is the weight of remorse on Yasha’s shoulders.</p><p class="p1">She’s been made for this, bred for this, trained for this— to be savage, brutal, destructive. The memory of what it meant to be a member of Tribe Dolorav, to scavenge the open wastes and bring down foes in one mighty blow, runs strong. Obann is imprinted on the inside of her eyelids. She hears him, breathes him, lives his command. She has earned the epithet Orphanmaker, destroyer of lives.</p><p class="p1">But buried deep down is something <em>other</em>. A foreign light, a globule bobbing in the darkness. Nestled in this beacon is Zuala, is the thunderous might of hope of the Stormlord, is the brief moments of joy spent living with the Nein, in the white of her hair that has long since turned black.</p><p class="p1">“Long time no see,” Beauregard says over the sound of Yasha’s great sword’s sharpened edge dragging across the cathedral’s floor, stance prepared to defend.</p><p class="p1">Skingorger cleaves through Beau’s torso with ease. She topples backwards to the floor, crimson beginning to pool around her. Yasha’s gut twists and turns, nauseous venom rising in her throat. She brings the rust-colored great sword down on Beau’s unconscious form— Brave Beau, who loves so fiercely—it’s tip driving through her chest. A dribble of blood pours from Beau’s lolled mouth.</p><p class="p1">Desperate cries rise up from the Nein, echoing off the cathedral walls, her name ringing in her ears like thousands of bell chimes. Thick streams of tears roll down Yasha’s cheeks, gliding along the hard edge of her jaw and dripping off her chin. That flicker of light in her trembles against the darkness, weakening.</p><p class="p1">The will of her body and mind are separate from one another, and her attention turns to Fjord. Oh, Fjord, who she’d been worried for in Rosohna when his powers had dwindled. Fjord, who looked at her with certainty that she’d intended this all along.</p><p class="p1"><em>No,</em> she thinks,<em> I didn’t want this. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t—</em></p><p class="p1">“Tell me you can hear me.”</p><p class="p1">Fjord’s voice is different now.</p><p class="p1">A shadowy tendril reaches Fjord’s hand as he raises it in Yasha’s direction. She leaps to the side to avoid the dark vine’s grasp, but it drills through the front of her armor and drives straight into her chest. The black clings to her skin, smattered across her skin and armor like blood. It’s chill spreads through her chest. What feels like thousands of teeth bites into her, and her blood falls away from her body and towards Fjord. They close over his open wounds like bandages. That’s new, too. She wonders what else has changed while she has been away.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>I hear you, Fjord.</em>
</p><p class="p1">This is atonement, justice, retribution. The sunlight outside the cathedral fades, the sound of thunder rolling in, and Yasha’s eyes lull shut.</p><p class="p1">That feeling of otherness—goodness, warmth—burning deep in her trembles, and swells. Heat sears the back of her neck, and the emblem carved into the back of her neck shatters. A ring of light erupts, her body its epicenter.</p><p class="p1">Lightning bears down on the cathedral, a thunderous roar accompanying the flash. The earth itself trembles beneath her feet, rattling her knees. The stained glass windows, casting the room in an array of colors, breaks into thousands of tiny, fragmented shards, pouring down on the hall.</p><p class="p1">Yasha presses her scarred palm to the back of her neck, where her skin still burns, her eyes looking up through her lashes at the carnage before her. Despite her hoarse throat, Yasha lets out a primal scream equal to the might of Kord’s storms, and collapses to her knees.</p><p class="p1">Agony and relief wrestle in her chest, a tightness thee she’d become numb to now gone. Yasha collapses to her knees. And for the first time, in days, months, years— she is alone in her head, the only voice there is her own. She closes her eyes, and the red-skinned devil is no longer there, and instead, she finds the seven faces of the Nein, including her lost friend Mollymauk.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tysm for reading! i hope you enjoyed, pls leave a comment or come say hi on twitter @nydorin</p></blockquote></div></div>
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